


annihilation

by tourdefierce



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Angst, Drug Use, M/M, Pretentious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-06
Updated: 2012-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-29 01:33:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tourdefierce/pseuds/tourdefierce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how it works.</p>
            </blockquote>





	annihilation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roflolmaomg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roflolmaomg/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Dancer from the Dance](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/6291) by Andrew Holleran. 



> Unbeta'd.
> 
> Originally posted on LJ: July 6th, 2010.

It's the little things, in the end, that drive Chris mad.

There is nothing in this void that makes sense, not between the two of them... not now. But the moments blur together and grow, festering like an open wound.

It's infected, he knows. It's going to cost him.

He takes a deep breath in the darkness of his room, listening to Karl's breath beside him and tries not to be swallowed up inside the man's lungs.

He tries not to want it, to burrow deep inside Karl and never come out. It's heartbeats. It's vanity. It's absolution.

<3<3<3

It's their first meeting alone, coffee at the corner down from the studio. The place is unfamiliar but it's common ground. Not that they need even footing but Chris has sweaty palms and feels shaky in uncertainty. Sure, him and Zach have chemistry but they knew that before the readings. If JJ decided to take the Kirk and Bones directions he'd been talking about, him and Karl would be essential.

They would have to work.

Chris is early, tucked into the corner of the shop with his notebooks and script excerpts spread around him like an army of words. A buffer between him and Karl, who everyone says is wonderful but Chris knows full well that he's kind of a dick himself. How will he compare to Karl's open smile and the curl of his Kiwi accent around words that Chris keeps as his own for so long?

He watches through the window as Karl slips out of his cab, all graceful limbs and strides with confidence Chris left in the literature wing of Berkley. He's covered in laid back style, loose jeans and a button up that doesn't quite cover the lean line of his collar bone.

Chris is disarmed by his smile. It's wide and raw, so unlike anything in Hollywood these days. It reminds him of his mother's smile, twenty years back in the black and white head shots that speak not of mystery but of youth. It's enough to knock the breath out of him and rattle all his preparations.

He is defenseless in the face of this charming man.

'Hey Chris," Karl says softly and leans down to Chris' still body to hug him. It's an awkward angle but Karl makes it work somehow, with long arms that radiate heat from underneath the long-sleeved cotton.

Chris melts into the hug, utterly devastated.

<3<3<3

Friendship is a funny line that Chris can't walk.

Zach laughs when Chris can't seem to control himself, watching Karl prowl around the set and be completely oblivious to the world he has created around him. Chris hates him for everything that digs sharply into Chris' chest and leaves him white knuckled and hopeless.

"He's rather charming, isn't he?" Zach comments idly but Chris knows how readable he is to Zach. He's not completely delusional.

"Fuck off," Chris mutters and tries to burry himself into his latest _attainable_ obsession.

<3<3<3

Karl leaves his script in Chris' trailer and Chris manages not to look inside, even though he is itching to thumb through the pages with Karl's scrawled hand writing. Instead, he picks it up and walks the twenty steps to Karl's trailer.

There is a picture of a koala on the door and Chris whimpers. Who is that cute? Who is that fucking adorable and disarming and fucking wonderful?

"Karl?" Chris knocks and pushes open the door to find Karl fiddling with the small stove unit in the even smaller trailer.

"Hey, Chris!" Karl says brightly, barely turning from flipping what Chris smells as bacon. They have a catering trailer, with dozens of cooks who are head over heels for Karl and would happily cook him bacon in exchange for a smile all their own.

Instead, Karl is cooking bacon in his trailer for no apparent reason other than he wants to.

"I'm making bacon." Karl states obviously when Chris closes the door behind him, fighting the urge to burry his face in the open curve of Karl's neck. "You hungry?"

 _You have no idea_ , Chris thinks.

"Sure, if you made enough," Chris says instead while Karl smiles and wipes his brow.

 _I'm hungry for so much more than food,_ Chris thinks as he sinks into the couch and dreams of his hands on Karl's hips and the gentle curve of skin that covers his elbow, exposed by the roll of his sleeves.

<3<3<3

It's a cast party at Zach house, full of pretentious people with skinny jeans and large glasses who talk about books they haven't read but pretend they have and sip wine like it's champagne, even though Chris knows it came out of box.

The LA heat is oppressive and Chris escapes to the balcony, the tea lights around him mock his swooning. And that is exactly what he's doing, swooning over a gorgeous married man who doesn't have any interest in what Chris has to offer. (He catalogs the scars of his face, the freckles on his shoulders, the weight of his arms, the count of his ribs and totals them. He keeps them in a book, just incase someone comes looking.)

He's dying for a cigarette, anything to pull his shit together for him. But his pack is inside and the need to be away from everyone in that room is too much to go back in. In the end, he just leans against the railing and wonders if walking home now would be too obvious.

He's contemplating texting Zach to come rescue him from himself when Karl steps out on the balcony, joint between his lips and a smile that is leaning towards feral on his mouth.

Chris watches him with hooded eyes. He looks incredibly dashing tonight but Karl doesn't say a word just settles close, their bodies touching from shoulder to elbow.

The heat is oppressive.

Karl lights and inhales, the smell is sweet and pungent in the air as the joint smokes lightly at the end. Chris is too captivated by Karl's face, eyes cloaked in pleasure as he holds the smoke in his lungs. His lips are pursed and Chris licks his own, fighting the envy he holds for the joint, for the smoke, for the air that Karl gets to possess without asking.

Karl exhales and Chris stares at him through the haze of smoke, his eyes are a startling hazel and even though Karl is offering the joint to Chris, he can't seem to move.

A small huff of laughter rolls out of Karl and he takes a second drag before cupping his free hand to the curl of Chris' jaw. The contact burns hot and slick. Chris' lips part and Karl swoops in, pressing his lips to slide and lock against Chris' so that he can push the smoke out with his tongue, letting it curl and spiral into Chris' lungs until he can't breath anything in but Karl: Karl on his lips, soft and commanding; Karl's pot, sweet and devastating; Karl's tongue, dominating but endearing; Karl's desire, pooling and hostile; KarlKarlKarlKarl...

<3<3<3

Their naked, sheets twisted somewhere at the base of the bed. Chris is riding a high, unbelievably high above him in a world that he can feel tangible in. But not here, not here in this place where all that matters is Karl.

Karl is pressing tiny kisses long the inside of Chris' calf, rubbing his nose in their cooling sweat. It's disgusting but lovely and Chris feels sloppy in his happiness. Weightless in the palm of Karl's capable hands.

"Well," Karl says. "I do love you."

"Don't talk dirty," Chris replies breathlessly. His spine arching under Karl's commanding army of kisses that are gathering in the crannies of his knee.

"But I do love you," Karl whispers with a smile.

Chris pauses, the sweet reality of Karl's smile pushing away his thoughts. Happiness takes root in the base of his spine and Chris surrenders, his white flag already waving in the face of Karl's total invasion.

"Would you carry my child?" Chris asks playfully.

Karl swallows him whole.

<3<3<3

Karl's children build a fort in Chris' living room. It's pinned up with binder clips from abandoned scripts and all the blankets he owns are used in the construction.

They have long since left, their tiny feet a flurry of action and adventure as they are whisked away by John and his wife to get ice-cream.

Chris lies on his stomach, face buried in blankets that smell like _them_. It's comfortable and dangerous and Chris feels under siege in the fort in his living room.

"Thanks for letting them take over your living room," Karl says sleepily. The pleasure of the entire day shows on his face, open and happy.

"Mmmhmm," Chris hums because he has nothing left to say.

Karl has stolen all his words, eaten them like a hungry warrior, teeth shining in the light.

Words of your own, Chris thinks, are for the pleasure-seekers in life, so bent on pleasure that they pass right by happiness in its quiet existence right here in this fort, heavy linens all around them and Karl's pleased face next to his. Out of the corner of his vision, Chris sees Karl close his eyes to take deep breaths.

Chris turns on his back to free his hand until he can wiggle it around Karl's wrists. They are shackled. They are owned. They are used for love. They are conquered.


End file.
